Effect of Ultrasound on the Green Selective Oxidation of Benzyl Alcohol to Benzaldehyde

Marion Chevallier (1) , Sarah Dessolin (1) , Fanny Serres (1) , Lucile Bruyas (1) , Gregory Chatel (1)

1 LCME - Laboratoire de Chimie Moléculaire et Environnement

Oxidation of alcohols plays an important role in industrial chemistry. Novel green techniques, such as sonochemistry, could be economically interesting by improving industrial synthesis yield. In this paper, we studied the selective oxidation of benzyl alcohol as a model of aromatic alcohol compound under various experimental parameters such as substrate concentration, oxidant nature and concentration, catalyst nature and concentration, temperature, pH, reaction duration, and ultrasound frequency. The influence of each parameter was studied with and without ultrasound to identify the individual sonochemical effect on the transformation. Our main finding was an increase in the yield and selectivity for benzaldehyde under ultrasonic conditions. Hydrogen peroxide and iron sulfate were used as green oxidant and catalyst. Coupled with ultrasound, these conditions increased the benzaldehyde yield by +45% compared to silent conditions. Investigation concerning the transformation mechanism revealed the involvement of radical species.

Mots clés: sonochemistry; ultrasound; hydroxyl radical; selective oxidation; benzyl alcohol; benzaldehyde

Mots clés: sonochimie; alcool benzylique; benzaldéhyde; oxydation sélective; radicaux hydroxyles; ultrasons

Domaines: Chimie organique; Catalyse

Marion Chevallier, Sarah Dessolin, Fanny Serres, Lucile Bruyas, Gregory Chatel. Effect of Ultrasound on the Green Selective Oxidation of Benzyl Alcohol to Benzaldehyde. Molecules, 2019, 24 (22), pp.4157. ⟨10.3390/molecules24224157⟩. ⟨hal-02366821⟩